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All these memories of children's books have reminded me of how ingrained narrative was in my consciousness when I was a child. Present in my mind at all times was a narrator, observing me and telling my story at the exact same time I was acting it out, viz: I'd be walking around in the woods, stopping periodically to inspect various plants. As I did so, I'd be thinking: "She walked through the forest, stopping here and there to kneel down and contemplate plants. She saw a mayapple and wondered if fairies used them as umbrellas. She picked wildflowers and plucked the petals, saying, 'He loves me. He loves me not.' She saw a strange plant with purple leaves and suspected it must be an ingredient in a magic potion." On and on and on. Back then, I used to think I was the only one who thought in this manner. Now I wouldn't be surprised if other bibliophiles thought in that same constant narrative, maybe Krista, Cristina, Amanda, or The Little Professor. Anyone else?

I've been working on my dissertation all day and grading all night. At times like this, I think about other projects that have been on my mind for years and sometimes wish I were doing a different dissertation. From what I gather in conversations with graduate students and professors, it's a fairly common feeling. I don't really want to change topics; I'm still very interested in mine, but I experience moments of staring across the fence wistfully. Specifically: Those who have read this blog a while might know that I'm fascinated with 70s and 80s young adult fiction for girls: the middle-class, white femininity that is pretty shamelessly inculcated, from the images, to the behavior of the characters, to the grossly stereotypical representations of good girl/bad girl. Yet many women my age loved and continue to feel nostalgic for these books. Lots of cover art from a recent used bookstore trip follows under the fold [edited to put one image in the body of the post to get people to look at the others :-)]:

Forever, which was soft porn for sixth-grade slumber parties:

Yesterday on Drupal's support forum I proposed the idea of a bugmenot user account as a way for would-be commenters to avoid having to register. If you're not logged in right now, you should be able to see "register or login to post comments with username: nospam password: person" under each post and comment. I hope everyone who's not registered on a Drupal site will make good use of it.

Should I assign this book to my speech students?

Just one of many cool old books I was able to find at a used bookstore around here. More cover art to come. :-)

Aaargh. I have that blasted Don't Laugh at Me song in my mind that Jenny linked to a while back. I swear, it came at me from out of nowhere. It's like a sleeper earworm or something.

If Mohammed can't come to the mountain, etc. I really don't want to lose comments here because of spambots, so I'm going ahead and creating accounts for a lotta youze, complete with easy-to-remember passwords, signatures, and custom-photoshopped-with-love, created-especially-for-you-based-on-stuff-you-like avatars. Think of it as a special invitation. :-) So far I've only created accounts for Jonathan (blog), Prof. B. (blog), Tutor (blog), and Jenny (blog). I've got more people in mind, like Rana, Cindy, Krista, Michelle, Chuck, and many others. I'm creating accounts for people who, to my knowledge, don't have accounts at Kairosnews or any other Drupal sites.

You likey? I changed the site theme from Chameleon to Bluemarine, which probably doesn't mean anything to you unless you're familiar with Drupal, and customized it for the old design. I changed the theme so that your avatars would show in comments. I hope the problems many have had viewing my site in Safari have gone away, or at least not gotten any worse. Please let me know how it looks. I'm only going by what I've got: Windows with monitor set at 1280x1024, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

Burn. This one pretty much covers all the bases, except maybe the lack of office space. Link widely. I miss IA!